A woman's best protection is her own money

Marriage doesn’t work silver lining period melodrama woman’s picture. Tradwife vs independence discourse. If MARY HAINES isn’t a survivor strong woman inspiration glaringly optimistic for a Fassbinder heroine then I’m the Duchess of Windsor. 

     In terms of plot structure there’s a bookending effect that evokes something like doomed perpetual repetition vicious cycle territory when CRYSTAL ALLEN (Barbara Sukowa Fassbinder debut) becomes the second Mrs. Haines. Because opportunistic busybody gossipmonger SYLVIA (Carstensen) desperately tries to solicit access as Crystal’s new bestie, inheriting it from the woman who previously held the title (Mary). When Women in New York (1977, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) begins it’s Crystal who’s the other woman; stealing Stephen Haines away from Mary. At the end she assumes the role of the former: her true love is taken away from her. And as a result she’ll lose ol moneybags.
     There’s a scene where Mary first hears of her cheating husband while MIRIAM (Irm Hermann) is giving her a manicure, narrating the entire story of the woman being cheated on the entire time unbeknownst to her that Mary Haines is the woman to whom she’s telling the story. I’ve always been immensely fascinated by the properties of storytelling inherent in being able to hear someone talk about you without knowing it’s you so you get to hear what you sound like in the third person as a character in a story.
     Another aspect to the framing of the narrative is Mary has a daughter who’s always spying that when we first meet says women talk too much and they’re stupid. She doesn’t want to be a woman. We probably shouldn’t use the word androgynous anymore but she (or maybe they) appear uncomfortable with conforming to a feminine look. For a film about women with no men in the cast this little touch is innovative. 
 
Dialogue in Women in New York is rapid-fire rare for a Fassbinder. But it’s set in the early 1930s so. This thing is full of gossip, pregnancies, cheating, divorces, beauty standards, money, aging, family, career. A maximalist woman’s picture. The scene with what's her name the Eva Mattes character smoking a cigarette in bed while nursing her newborn and she gets ashes in the baby's eyes yet oblivious is cringe funny goodness. 
     The final act is in Reno where several of the women steal away for a quickie divorce and coincidentally all happen to have done so the same weekend. Miriam steals Sylvia’s husband and there’s a pretty wild all out brawl that ensues. This thing is a constantly in progress series of proceedings revolving around which woman is stealing which’s husband. It’s cynical yet Fassbinder’s and our own interest in its subject matter mean we love these women. They get dragged through the muck though. There was a line that was something like “My therapist says the problem with modern women is they never really please their men and they’re not good mothers.” I feel like the film is trying to redefine the tradwife vs independence societal pressures and say why not both? Go after what you want and what’s the difference?